This invention relates to a variety of information recording apparatus having a nonuniform writing speed and an information transfer apparatus conveniently employed for transferring the information at an elevated speed to the various information recording apparatus.
In JP Patent Kokai (Laid-Open) Publications A-6-131371 and A-6-215010, the present Assignee has proposed an information transfer apparatus for transferring the information, such as speech information, from an information supply source at an elevated speed to a recording apparatus or recording/reproducing apparatus having a semiconductor memory enclosed therein.
FIG. 1 shows the appearance of an embodiment of an information recording and/or reproducing apparatus 200 exploiting such technique.
The apparatus shown in FIG. 1 includes a terminal 201 for connection to an information transfer apparatus. The information may be copied from the information transfer apparatus via this terminal 201 to a recording medium provided within the information recording/ reproducing apparatus 200.
The apparatus 200 shown in FIG. 1 includes a display unit 202 and a plurality of button switches 203. The contents of the information recorded on the recording medium may be displayed on the display unit 202. It is possible for the user of the apparatus 200 to selectively reproduce the necessary information, using one of the button switches 203, based upon the display contents on the display unit 202. There is no particular limitation to the contents of the information which may be text information, speech information, video information, computer programs or the like. Program reproduction herein means execution of the program. It is however possible for the user to input the information if necessary. If reproduced signals are the text information or video information, it may be displayed on the display unit 202. If they are the speech or audio information, the speech or audio signals based on the speech or audio information may be outputted via an earphone 204.
Although not shown in the embodiment of FIG. 1, it is possible to provide a speaker in lieu of or in addition to an earphone 204, in which case the speech or audio signals based on the speech or audio information may be outputted via the speaker.
Similarly, although not shown in the embodiment of FIG. 1, reproduced signals may be coupled to an external display unit or a speaker using an external terminal. Although there is no particular limitation to the type of the recording media, a semiconductor memory, which permits high-speed duplication and random access and which is facilitated in transportation, may be conveniently employed.
FIG. 2 shows an alternate arrangement employing the above technique. The present arrangement corresponds to the information recording/reproducing apparatus of FIG. 1 in which an information recording unit 210 is physically separated from an information reproducing unit 220. Since it becomes necessary during reproduction to transmit data and control signals between the information recording unit and the information reproducing unit 220, the units 210, 220 are provided with terminals interconnecting these units. A connection terminal 211 for connection to the information transfer apparatus and a connection terminal 212 for connection to the information reproducing apparatus, provided on the information recording unit 210, may be unified into one terminal employed commutatively. With the arrangement shown in FIG. 2, the information from the information recording unit 210 may be transmitted to the information reproducing unit 220 by inserting the information recording unit 210 into an insertion/takeout opening 221 formed in the information reproducing unit 220.
FIG. 3 shows, in a perspective view, a practical construction of an information transfer apparatus 230 exploiting the above technique. A recording medium, having the information recorded thereon, is contained in the information transfer apparatus 230. Although not shown in FIG. 3, transmission over wire or radio transmission may be utilized for transmitting the recording information. It is naturally possible to get the pre-recorded recording medium mounted within the apparatus 230.
The apparatus 230, shown in FIG. 3, includes display sections 232 for displaying the pricing or contents of the recorded information and button switches 231 for selecting which information is to be outputted from the apparatus 230. The user desirous to procure the information thrusts a desired one of the button switches 231 by having reference to the contents displayed on the display sections 230. The information may be procured by inserting the information recording/reproducing unit or the information recording unit the user possesses into an insertion/takeout opening 234 of the information transfer apparatus 230 in order to procure a copy.
FIG. 4 shows, in a perspective view, another concrete example of the information this apparatus exploiting the above technique. With the this apparatus, an insertion opening 241 is separated some distance from a takeout opening 242, such that a user desirous to procure the information H is able to procure it as he or she walks in a direction indicated by arrow A in FIG. 4. An information recording unit 243, inserted at the inserting opening 241, is transported within the information transfer apparatus 240 in a direction indicated by arrow a by a transporting device, not shown, within the information transfer apparatus 240, as the information is copied from the information transfer apparatus 240 to the information recording unit 243. The information recording unit 240 is then discharged at the takeout opening 242. This information transfer apparatus is convenient for promptly furnishing the information to a large number of users.
FIG. 5 is a block circuit diagram showing a practical arrangement for transferring the information from the information transfer apparatus 230 of FIG. 3 to the information recording unit 210 shown in FIG. 2.
The information read out from a recording medium 111 contained in the information transfer apparatus 230 is transferred via a transfer control circuit 112 to write control means 121 within the information recording unit 210. The write control means 121 causes the recorded information to be sequentially written on recording media 131 to 133 for completing the information transfer from the information transfer apparatus 230 to the information recording unit 210. The information is reproduced from the recording media 131 to 133 and transferred via an terminal 103 to the reproducing unit under control by readout control means 141.
FIG. 6 shows typical recording states for the recording media 131 to 133 shown in FIG. 5.
In the present example, information data D.sub.0 to D.sub.185 of 186 information blocks shown in FIG. 6A are recorded on three recording media 131, 132 and 133. The information block herein means an information unit of, for example, 512 bytes. Each of the recording media 131 to 133 has a recording region for storing the information for 64 information blocks shown in FIGS. 6B, 6C and 6D (memory blocks M0 to M63). The information data D.sub.0 to D.sub.63 of from the 0'th information block to the 63rd information block of FIG. 6A are stored in the memory blocks of 0'th memory block M0 up to the 63rd memory block M63 of the recording medium 131, while the information data D.sub.64 to D.sub.127 of from the 64th information block to the 127th information block of FIG. 6A are stored in the memory blocks of 0'th memory block M0 up to the 63rd memory block M63 of the recording medium 132 and the information data D.sub.128 to D.sub.185 of from the 128th information block to the 185th information block of FIG. 6A are stored in the memory blocks of 0'th memory block M0 up to the 57th memory block M57 of the recording medium 133.
A semiconductor memory enclosed within the information recording unit for which portability is required is conveniently a non-volatile memory not in need of the battery backup because there is no inconvenience of inadvertent erasure of the recorded information. For such non-volatile memory, EEPROMs as described in, for example, "LARGE CAPACITY NON-VOLATILE MEMORY" by Ito et al. in TOSHIBA REVIEW 1990 vol. 45 No. 11 pp. 870 to 873 and "4M BIT NAND EEPROM HAVING MINIMUM CHIP AREA" BY Masuoka in DENSHI GIJUTSU 1990-11, pp. 23 to 27, may be employed.
However, with customary EEPROMS, it takes a longer time for writing than with volatile memories. Consequently, if the information transmitted from the information transfer apparatus is sequentially recorded, the information transfer time is inconveniently prolonged. Besides, with the above-mentioned EEPROMs, the constituent memory elements exhibit variation in characteristics, such that writing in each memory device is not necessarily completed within a pre-set time.
For eliminations out the above inconvenience, the present Assignee has proposed in an unpublished international application PCT/JP94/00642 an apparatus for writing the information in parallel on an information recording apparatus made up of plural recording media for transferring the information at an elevated speed to an information recording apparatus. With the use of this apparatus, the information transfer may be completed at an extremely high speed even if such a recording medium is employed in which the writing time is markedly varied from one memory device to another.
If the information is written in parallel from the information transfer apparatus on the information recording unit made up of plural recording media, it is desirable for the interface between the information transfer apparatus and the information recording unit to be as simple as possible in structure and be able to cope with variable constructions of the recording medium.
However, with the method disclosed in the international application PCT/JP94/00642, it is necessary to transmit at all times the information designating the unit of transmission of the information from the information recording unit to the information transfer apparatus, such that complicated control operations are necessitated. In addition, since the transfer sequence of the information is changed depending upon writing characteristics of the recording media contained in the information recording apparatus, the information transfer apparatus needs to have the ability of transferring the information in a random sequence.
Thus, with the above-described information transfer apparatus and the information recording unit, the control information is transmitted and received for each information transfer operation, thus raising the costs in the controller or the transmitting/receiving section. In addition, the recording medium within the information transfer apparatus tends to be costly because the recording medium capable of a high-speed operation and random accessing needs to be employed.
Meanwhile, the recording density of the semiconductor memory is increasing year by year and, with increase in the recording density, the information recording unit of the same recording capacity may be realized using a smaller number of the recording media. Consequently, there may be occasions wherein the conventional information transfer apparatus cannot meet the wide variety of types of the application and usage employing a wide variety of recording media.